How Well Do You Know Your Writers? Here's A Little Quiz

A fun little book of quotations by writers crossed my desk the other day, the kind that inspires a person to alternately chortle at the wit and nod gravely at the wisdom therein.

It's the third edition of "The Writer's Quotation Book: A Literary Companion," edited by James Charlton (Penguin, $7, paperback). Many of the quotes by writers about writing and books are deliciously acerbic. A few are more thoughtful and reverent.

Take a crack at matching the quote with the writer. Most are perfectly logical, while the sentiments expressed by some writers may surprise you. There is no prize, but feel free to pat yourself on the back if you do well -- or switch to the crossword puzzle (or look at the answers) if you're stumped. Hey, we're easy. There are 30 quotes below, but only 29 names. We like one of our quote-makers so much, we quoted him/her twice. (For those who enjoy this exercise, you will find many more such quotes in Charlton's compendium.) 1. "The pleasure of all reading is doubled when one lives with another who shares the same books." 2. "Some say life is the thing, but I prefer reading." 3. "It is a mistake to think that books have come to stay. The human race did without them for thousands of years and may decide to do without them again." 4. "There are times when I think that the reading I have done in the past has had no effect except to cloud my mind and make me indecisive." 5. "I suggest that the only books that influence us are those for which we are ready, and which have gone a little farther down our particular path than we have yet gone ourselves." 6. "Where is human nature so weak as in the bookstore?" 7. "The worst thing about new books is that they keep us from reading the old ones." 8. "Most of the basic material a writer works with is acquired before the age of 15." 9. "When you catch an adjective, kill it." 10. "I'm a lousy writer; a helluva lot of people have got lousy taste." 11. "I try to leave out the parts that people skip." 12. "People want to know why I do this, why I write such gross

stuff. I like to tell them I have the heart of a small boy -- and I keep it in a jar on my desk." 13. "I do not believe the expenditure of $2.50 for a book entitles the purchaser to the personal friendship of the author." 14. "If you caricature your friends in your first novel, they will be upset, but if you don't, they will feel betrayed." 15. "I believe more in the scissors than I do in the pencil." 16. "I'm not sure a bad person can write a good book. If art doesn't make us better, then what on earth is it for?" 17. "Writing is not a profession but a vocation of unhappiness." 18. "I love being a writer. What I can't stand is the paperwork." 19. "I don't drink a lot. That's perhaps one of the reasons why my characters are always drinking and taking drugs, because I am not." 20. "I usually need a can of beer to prime me." 21. "To read a group of novels these days is a depressing experience. After the fourth or fifth, I find myself thinking about `The Novel,' and I feel a desperate desire to sneak out to a movie." 22. "Nothing induces me to read a novel except when I have to make money by writing about it. I detest them." 23. "You can do it sitting down. I sit in bed with a big breakfast, and then I write. I like that." 24. "You have to sink way down to a level of hopelessness and desperation to find the book that you can write." 25. "You can fire your secretary, divorce your spouse, abandon your children. But they remain your co-authors forever." 26. "I always know the ending; that's where I start." 27. "Writers seldom wish other writers well." 28. "If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry." 29. "Some editors are failed writers, but so are most writers." 30. "You know how it is in the kid's book world: it's just bunny eat bunny."

Barnes & Noble is planning to open another "superstore" in Connecticut. This one will be in Enfield, in the Brookside Plaza on Hazard Avenue. It will be 15,000 square feet and open in early October.

Barnes & Noble has been aggressively opening superstores in the Northeast in the last year. The chain has a 14,000-square-foot superstore in Danbury and a 9,000-square-foot store it opened this past spring in Bishops Corner, West Hartford. The superstores, which are modeled in many ways on independent bookstores, emphasize a large title selection and customer service. All books are discounted.

With the addition of the new superstores, particularly the one

in Farmington, the competition among chain and independent bookstores will become even more heated. It remains to be seen whether all the stores can survive